Journalist Quotes - Page 32

• Politicians are just Daily Mail journalists writ large, aren't they? They're always telling us what's going to happen, and we know they don't know!

  Tom Baker

  Daily Mail, Politician, Happens

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• There's many heroic underappreciated investigative journalists.

  Robert Crumb

  Heroic

  "R. Crumb on greed, senior sex and life in France: ‘I’m not less angry’ [updated]". Interview with Deborah Vankin, herocomplex.latimes.com. November 10, 2010.

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• Richard A. Posner is an extraordinary person. If he did not exist, it would be hard to believe that he could. (...) He writes with a flair that puts most journalists to shame and a depth of knowledge that puts most professors to shame.

  Alan Ryan

  Believe, Writing, Extraordinary Person

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• Journalists cover words and delude themselves into thinking they have committed journalism.

  Hedrick Smith

  Thinking, Journalism, Committed

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• Journalists belong in the gutter because that is where the ruling classes throw their guilty secrets.

  Gerald Priestland

  Funny, Class, Keeping Secrets

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• Bad things don't happen to writers; it's all material.

  Garrison Keillor

  Materials, Happens, Bad Things

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• The truth is, "What is a journalist?" is one of those questions for which there is no proper answer. The prehistory of modern journalism shows it has been a ragged and confusing trade all the way through.

  Andrew Marr

  Modern Journalism, Confusing, Way

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• There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.

  Oscar Wilde

  Ignorance, Modern Journalism, Giving

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.393, University of Chicago Press

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• Our job is like a baker's work - his rolls are tasty as long as they're fresh; after two days they're stale; after a week, they're covered with mould and fit only to be thrown out.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Funny, Jobs, Two

  Ryszard Kapuscinski (2013). “The Soccer War”, p.136, Vintage

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• It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone, and can be made as offensive as the brickbat. They at once sought for the journalist, found him, developed him, and made him their industrious and well-paid servant. It is greatly to be regretted, for both their sakes.

  Oscar Wilde

  Stones, Sake, Journalism

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.1056, Wordsworth Editions

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• Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents.

  Peggy Noonan

  Adults, Want, Journalism

  Peggy Noonan (1990). “What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era”, Random House (NY)

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• We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused - in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible. On the other hand, the lightness of the artillery should not degenerate into pop-gunnery - by which term we may designate the character of the greater portion of the newspaper press - their sole legitimate object being the discussion of ephemeral matters in an ephemeral manner.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Character, Light, Hands

  Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Parker Willis, James Russell Lowell, Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1857). “The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: Literati”, p.499

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• If, for instance, they have heard something from the postman, they attribute it to a semi-official statement; if they have fallen into conversation with a stranger at a bar, they can conscientiously describe him as a source that has hitherto proved unimpeachable. It is only when the journalist is reporting a whim of his own, and one to which he attaches minor importance, that he defines it as the opinion of well-informed circles.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Circles, Bars, Opinion

  Evelyn Waugh (1983). “The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh”, Methuen

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• People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils from private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous but blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything so valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million times in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him in real life.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Real, Men, Yellow

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• The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Temple of Fame, in which they put up and take down portraits all day long and make such a hammering you can't hear yourself speak.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Long, Portraits, Littles

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook D 20, 1799.

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• The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They, indeed, are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Journalism, Language, Speak

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1840). “Democracy in America”, p.112

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• I once saw a photograph of a large herd of wild elephants in Central Africa Seeing an airplane for the first time, and all in a state of wild collective terror... As, however, there were no journalists among them, the terror died down when the airplane was out of sight.

  Bertrand Russell

  Funny, Airplane, Elephants

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• Here in the news media, our focus is on speed. When we get hold of some new and possibly inaccurate information, our highest priority is to get it to you, the public, before our competitors do. If the news media owned airlines, there would be a lot less concern about how many planes crashed, and a lot more concern about whose plane hit the ground first.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Media, Priorities

  Dave Barry (2003). “Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, but Some Actual Journalism”, p.14, Crown Archetype

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• This ball was so crowded that it took me - a trained professional journalist with vast experience in this area - forty five minutes to get a beer.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Beer, Balls

  "Boogers Are My Beat". Book by Dave Barry, September, 2003.

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• A critical function that we journalists perform at political conventions is to try to get into parties that we have not been invited to. There are dozens of these parties, sponsored by large corporations with a sincere public-spirited desire to become larger.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Party, Political

  Dave Barry (2003). “Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, but Some Actual Journalism”, p.26, Crown Archetype

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• ...Terry Jackson, who is the Miami Herald's automotive writer and TV critic. That's correct: This man gets paid to drive new cars AND watch television. If he ever dies and goes to heaven, it's going to be a big let down.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Men, Car

  Dave Barry (2003). “Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, but Some Actual Journalism”, p.100, Crown Archetype

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• As the saying goes: "If you're not part of the solution, you're a newspaper columnist."

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Journalism, Newspapers

  Dave Barry (2009). “Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus”, p.147, Ballantine Books

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• As a professional journalist, I have always been fascinated by people who appear to have even more spare time than I do.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, People, Journalism

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry Talks Back”, p.83, Crown Archetype

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• For the benefit of those of you who have real jobs and are not involved in the news business, I should first explain that . . .

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Jobs, Real

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry's Greatest Hits”, p.4, Ballantine Books

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• One of the issues that we professional newspaper columnists are required by union regulations to voice grave concern about is the federal budget deficit, which we refer to as the "mounting" deficit, because every extra word helps when you have to produce a certain number of gravely concerned newsprint inches.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Voice, Numbers

  Dave Barry (1989). “Dave Barry's Greatest Hits”, Ballantine Books

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